


Gateway to that Forgotten Time

by Painted_Purple



Series: Rescue Hiro [1]
Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hiro is done, Mental and Emotional Angst, Most of the time, Nervous breakdowns, Surprise series cameo is a surprise, Tadashi lives!, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 02:26:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5399378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Painted_Purple/pseuds/Painted_Purple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The First time is a miracle.<br/>The Second time is confusing.<br/>The Third time is frustrating. </p><p>By the Sixteenth time he finds himself reliving the months between Abigail Callaghan's supposed death, and the day he originally entered that dammed Portal outside Krei Tech; Hiro Hamada is pissed off and ready for everything to just be over. </p><p>No. <i>Matter. <b>What.</b></i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Gateway to that Forgotten Time

 

The first time is a miracle. 

There's nothing else to call waking up with his brothers voice calling out "Good Morning baby bro! Time to rise and shine!" to him when Tadashi's been dead for over four months.

At first he thinks it's all a dream: that the portal had done something to his head. He remembers the fight with Callaghan at Krei Technologies. He remembers his teammates (his brothers friends) fighting against his stolen Microbots. He remembers winning and then having Baymax picking up a life sign from the portal. He remembered getting on Baymax and going after Abigail (because that's what his brother would have wanted). He definitely remembers that strange cloudy world beyond the blue portal.

Finding Abigail's pod and Baymax’s sacrifice when they got hit by falling debris. He remembered being just inches from the glowing portal and then a flash of bright light blinding him.

Now he's laying on his bed, his blinds open and the morning sun shining brightly in his eyes; but most of all his brother is _alive._

Of course, he freaks out.

He cries and has a minor meltdown when Tadashi tries to talk to him about it. He freaks out and runs away.

A part of him wanted to hug his brother, but a bigger part feels like if he gives into this delusion he'll end up breaking down worse than when he found out Callaghan started the fire.

So he dashes through the Café, barefooted and probably looking mostly insane, and runs. He runs and _runs_ and **_runs_** until he gets to San Fransokyo's Greener Planes Cemetery. It doesn't take long for him to retrace the familiar path to his brother's grave...

Only to find an empty plot.

He ends up just standing there for what feels like hours.  With bloody feet, dressed in faded Pokémon pajamas, he stands in front of an empty grave and wonders if this is what going crazy feels like.

Because... how? Portals he can understand. The science is all there. Alternate dimensions like the one beyond the portal? Accidental cryo like Abigail found herself in? It's improbable but the Science. _Is_. **_There_**!

But this?

What's even happening? Was everything a vivid dream (nightmare)? Did he travel back in time? Is he in some kind of Mirror universe? Is he possessing his past-self?!

HOW!? 

But in the end he comes up with nothing, his mind spinning, and decides to head back home. It takes over an hour, and when he finally steps into the Lucky Cat Café Tadashi is right there, pulling him into a deep hug and asking him if he's ok.

With shaky limbs he wraps his arms around his no longer dead brother. His _Nii-san_. Who by some miracle of god, magic or science is alive again.

So he hugs his brother.

And cries.

Everything's going to be ok now.

 

* * *

 

Everything is not ok. 

Mostly things are ok (because Tadashi is ALIVE) but he never realized how much difference seven months made for him. He's already graduated from high school and is taking his year off before applying anywhere (or so he told Tadashi. He's pretty sure he was planning to go into professional Bot-fighting rather than spend another minute in a classroom.) So he has nothing to do while Tadashi's at school.

Then there's the lack of the Nerd Crew. Gogo. Honey. Wasabi. Fred. He's technically never met any of them, but that doesn't stop him from reaching for his phone to text one of them almost a dozen times that first day.

He had to lock his cell phone in his desk when he had absentmindedly dialed Honey's cell and only realized what he was doing when he reached her voicemail.

So he misses his friends. But they're not his friends anymore. Just his brothers.

That's ok though. He can make friends with them again.

Baymax is harder to ignore. The AI had been his rock after Tadashi's death. Last he saw was Baymax sacrificing himself for him and now... now he's not sure if Tadashi is even finished Baymax's programming. The thought eats at him so much that he ends up hacking Tadashi's home computer for any info and instead finds himself staring at the date at the bottom of the screen.

October 6th.

He can feel his mind slow down at that. There's a ringing in his ear as he remembers why that day is so important.

October 6th was when Krei Technologies tested the portal. At 6am this morning Abigail Callaghan was 'killed' and Robert Callaghan swore revenge. Revenge that meant burning down a building, killing his brother, stealing his tech, and trying to kill Alastair Krei.

Fuck.

Dropping his head in his hands Hiro takes a deep breath and plans.

He's not going to let his brother get killed.

He needs to stop Callaghan.

He needs to keep his brother safe.

Callaghan.

Tadashi.

Callaghan.

Tadashi.

_Callaghan.Tadashi.Abigail.Baymax.Gogo.HoneyLemon.Wasabi.Fred.Krei.EVERYONE!!_

Taking a deep breath Hiro Hamada closes his eyes, blocks out his screaming thoughts and just _breathes_.

Ok. Ok he can do this. He's a genius with an IQ over 163 and he has three months before Callaghan cracks and burns down the tech expo. Three months is enough time to keep everyone safe and do something about Callaghan.

He can do this.

 

* * *

 

Standing outside the burning Tech expo Hiro wonders where he went wrong.

He knew he couldn't just walk up to Callaghan and explain. He's pretty sure he'll sound insane. So he instead hacked Krei Technologies and stole every bit of into they had about the teleporter.

Then he made sure that his project entry for the science expo was NOT Microbots.

Not that he didn't make any. He did. He had about four barrels worth stashed in his workshop at home that no one knows about. Just in case.

So instead he submitted a long ranged scanner (like the one he had added to Baymax) that would be used in Search and Rescue to scan for life-signs. It hadn't been as big a hit as his Microbots, but when he showed that it could reach anywhere in San Fransokyo most people who had been paying attention had been impressed.

Krei hadn't showed any interest in his project, but Professor Callaghan had given it some absent minded praise before walking away. (Alarm bells had rung in the back of Hiro's head at that point. He was _so close_ to figuring out the flaw in the portals math so he could rebuild it but he still needed _more time_.)

So when he and Tadashi had come upon the Expo building burning all Hiro could think about was that 'this is hell' because all it took was some _fucking idiot_ screaming that "Professor Callaghan is still in there!" for his _idiot brother_ to try to rush head first into the fire.

But Hiro isn't a moron. So he doesn't even try to tell his brother to stop, just reaches out and grabs his arm and uses his watch to shoot a sedative dart into his brother's chest. His brother looks confused for a moment, then horrified, before he falls to the ground and passes out.

Dropping down Hiro covered his brother's unconscious body with his own, and feels a flash of heat on his back as the building in front of him explodes.

He can fix this.  

 

* * *

 

Tadashi is mad at him.

Hiro kind of gets where he's coming from, (he'd be pissed if Tadashi had drugged him too) but the fact that Tadashi thinks that he could have saved Callaghan if Hiro didn't stop him is pissing the younger boy off. They had ended up screaming at each other about how Hiro had saved his life and 'didn’t want Tadashi to die!' and Tadashi had screamed back that it 'would have been worth it' because "how could Hiro have left Professor Callaghan in there and _not try_!"

So they were having some type of cold war with each other,  the Nerd Crew was staying out of it (which meant that they weren't talking to him because Tadashi was their friend first) and Aunt Cass was worried and stress eating at all the yelling but Hiro didn't have time to fight with Tadashi. His brother would cool down eventually but he had to stop Callaghan. He knew he couldn't just dress up like a superhero this time, (Tadashi would KILL him) but the longer he waited the more possibility that whatever crazy Callaghan had in mind might hurt Tadashi.

He was still trying to figure out what to do three weeks after the fire when a news alert on his phone catches his attention.

 

[Bombing at Krei Technologies Headquarters \- CEO Alastair Krei confirmed among the Deceased]

 

What?

With shaking hands Hiro scrolled though the news feed and realized that Callaghan hadn't found a way of getting the portal back together so he must have decided to just bomb Krei instead.

Because he wanted revenge.

Fuck.

The portal had been just desserts but Callaghan hadn't known that Abigail was still alive in there. He miscalculated and now Krei was dead along with over 300 other Krei Technologies employees. Maybe Callaghan was dead too. This was his fault.

With a scream of frustration he threw his phone across the garage and watched as it shattered with little satisfaction. Blinking back tears of frustration Hiro grips his hair and quietly screams.

Abigail. He could still save Abigail.

 

* * *

 

Standing outside of what was once Krei's testing facility Hiro looks at the crater of absolutely nothing and feels numb inside. Apparently Callaghan wanted to destroy the portal that 'killed' his daughter before suicide bombing the hell out of Krei Headquarters.

So Abigail was as good as dead. He might be able to remake the portal from scratch but it would take _years._ And money. Lots of money that he didn't have. Plus there was no guarantee that that the portal would find her, or that she would still be alive.

That means that; Abigail, Callaghan, Krei and over 300 innocent people died so his brother could live.

Taking a deep breath Hiro fights back a panic attack and tells himself that it's worth it. 

People are dead. His brother hated him. His friends weren't his friends anymore.

But Tadashi was alive.

So it would have to be enough.

 

* * *

   

Then it's May 1st.

  

And everything started again.

 

* * *

  

 The Second time is confusing.

He goes to sleep on the couch in the garage on May 1st and finds himself waking up in his bed, sun in his eyes with his brother wishing him "Good Morning baby bro! Time to rise and shine!" with none of the tension that had been building between them for months. It actually takes him an hour before realizes that everything reset again. 

When he finally puts it together he flying tackles his brother in a hug and basks in the warmth of his brothers freely given affection for the first time in months.

He can definitely do it right this time.

  

* * *

 

 He does the Microbot for his expo submission again.

If Callaghan steals his bots again he'll make enough to help rebuild the portal and Hiro _needs_ more bots then he can make on his own to fix it. Plus if Callaghan goes off and kills himself again Hiro might just go crazy. 

(He ignores the fact that he's been slowly going insane since his brother died.)

So he showcases his Microbots, gets Krei interested and dismisses him, talks with Callaghan (and refrains from shaking the man) and then demands that his brother take him across town to his new 'favorite restaurant' for celebration. He eats slow, talks a lot and makes sure to eat dessert before they head back to the expo center. The flames are already dying down by the time they get there, and his brother is worried about 'What ifs?' but Tadashi isn't mad at him for saving his life.

So Callaghan is playing dead and has his Microbots: but Hiro has a plan.

  

* * *

 

He fucked up again.

He made a backup Neurotransmitter for the Microbots, but he hadn't considered that Callaghan might have messed with the frequency. He tried to confront the man in the warehouse where he was producing his Microbots but the man ran when Hiro called out to him by name. Then he got pissed off when Hiro pulled out his secondary transmitter and tried to take control of the bots. It didn't work, and Hiro ended up breaking his arm falling out the same window Baymax had saved him from the first time.

Blinking back tears of pain Hiro didn't see Callaghan get away, but he knew he was already gone.

He needs to find Callaghan before he kills someone.

  

* * *

 

Gogo is dead.

He had tried to confront Callaghan at the docks like he had in the first go-around, but he hadn't counted on his brother having put GPS trackers in his clothing again. (He really should have. Especially considering that Tadashi didn't believe him when he said he broke his arm falling down the stairs and thinks that Hiro had been back-alley Bot-Battling again.)

So Tadashi shows up with the whole Nerd Crew in Wasabi's van (like the first time around) and Tadashi pulls him inside the van and screams at Wasabi to DRIVE!

Hiro tries to explain, but everyone is more worried about dodging the Microbots before Gogo decides to take the wheel. She drives at the same breakneck speeds as before, but somewhere she takes a left when she should have taken a right, and the van ends up flipping when they dodge a blast of Microbots right over a guard railing.

The impact kills Gogo instantly.

Hiro is sure that the screech of metal and the snapping sound of Gogo's neck will haunt him just as much as the fire still does.

Honey and Tadashi are mostly ok; with only a couple of bumps and bruises. Wasabi ends up breaking his collarbone, and Fred dislocates his shoulder and chips a tooth. Hiro ends up with a concussion that has him passing out and minor whiplash in his neck. The concussion is really bad and leaves Hiro confused for days before things start to clear up.

By that point Hiro decides it might be worth telling Tadashi he thinks Yokai is Callaghan but Tadashi just gives him a pained filled look and hugs him and says everything is going to be ok. 

 

* * *

 

Everything is NOT ok!

What the FUCK Tadashi!

WHY!?!

Apparently Gogo use to run with a local gang and the leader still liked Gogo even after she left so he's willing to help his _idiot brother_ find the asshole that got her killed.

Except the street gang didn't give a fuck about Tadashi or anyone else.

So his stupid self-sacrificing idiot of a brother ended up taking a hit from Callaghan that breaks his back and now his brother is paralyzed from the waist down.

Not only that, but one of the gang members managed to shoot and kill Callaghan. And on top of _that_ the Krei research center is crawling with police because Tadashi had to be airlifted off the island. Hiro is never going to get close enough to the portal to fix it now.  

Damn it! This is all his fault! 

 

* * *

  

Then it's May 1st _again_.

 

And everything restarts **AGAIN**!

 

* * *

  

The Third time he wakes up on October 6th is full of both frustration and relief. He's frustrated that he has to keep dealing with this shit,  but also relieved because his brother is walking around and Gogo isn't dead (and neither is his brother) and that he can somehow make it _right_ this time.

So after hugging his brother and watching him head off to school Hiro hacks the DMV records and gets Callaghan's home address and camps outside the man's two story house for the rest of the day. He's still sitting outside at eight o'clock at night when a clearly drunk Callaghan shows up, staggering out of a taxi.

Callaghan mostly ignores him as he tries to get his attention. Hiro is frantic to get the man to _just listen_ to him, so he tries "It's about Abigail" and that's as far as he gets because Callaghan goes nuclear.

Grabbing him by the collar of his shirt Callaghan pulls him forward, feet dangling off the ground, and yells in Hiro's face that "MY DAUGHTER IS DEAD!" before pushing him away.  

Pushes him so hard in fact that Hiro trips off the top of the stairs, skidding down them, and slams his head against one of the cement stairs with a CRACK--

 

And he's waking up in his bedroom, with the sun in his eyes and his brother's voice calling out "Good Morning baby bro! Time to rise and shine!" again.

 

It takes Hiro about 30 seconds to figure out that he must have died falling down those stairs and he just--

 

He just breaks.

  

* * *

  

Hiro doesn't remember much of how Fourth loop started. He remembered screaming and crying and his brother hugging him. He vaguely remembered hearing Aunt Cass's voice but everything got fuzzy after a certain point and he ended up crying himself to sleep while Tadashi promises that everything was going to be OK. 

With oddly heavy eyes Hiro falls asleep and doesn't hear a word of the conversation that his Aunt and Brother have. Aunt Cass shakes her head in denial but Tadashi stands firm and makes a call on his cell phone.

 

Hiro doesn't wake from his drugged sleep until hours later, and by that time he's already in San Fransokyo General Hospital's Pediatric Ward.

Of course waking up with his hands strapped down and the drugs still making him loopy he fights and shouts and tries to tell them that they _have_ to let him go or people are going to die! He only stops fighting when one of the nurses doses him with something and he passes out again. 

 

The next time he wakes he's in the Psychiatric Ward and drugged up to his eyeballs on a cocktail of drugs that makes his lips loose enough that there's no way they're going to let him out again.

 

* * *

   

It's hard to keep track of time locked up and with the drugs making things fuzzy.

It's difficult but he _knows_ what day it is when Aunt Cass comes in first thing in the morning with puffy eyes and just breaks down when she sees him. Hiro is silent as he hugs her, even as one of the nurses pulls her away far too soon because she is 'upsetting him' and he knows what no one is saying. 

 

* * *

 

It takes two weeks for the Doctors to tell him his brother died in an _accident_.

 

* * *

  

When he finds himself falling asleep on a hard hospital bed and then waking up in his own bed and able to _feel_ again he almost starts crying. He doesn't though, just in case.  He ignores his brother's morning greeting and pulls his pillow over his face and tries to _breathe_. 

 

* * *

 

He ends up waiting two days to gather his thoughts before calmly sitting down and trying to explain to his brother what's happening to him. Tadashi's face is pale but he promises that everything will be ok before hugging him and getting up to leave.

Hiro knows that look.

He watches him walk out of their shared bedroom and downstairs. When Hiro creeps silently down the stairs he can hear Tadashi on the phone with Dr. Brown, one of the Psychiatrists from the hospital, and knows he can't go through that again.

It takes him less than five minutes to pack a bag before he's climbing out the window and disappearing into the streets of San Fransokyo.

 

* * *

  

He wakes six weeks later to the sight of his bedroom ceiling and his brother's cheery greeting of "Good Morning baby bro! Time to rise and shine!" and knows that he died sometime after falling asleep curled up in one of the abandoned buildings in the warehouse district.

He wonders in a detached sort of way (for someone who's already died twice) if it was the cold or if someone had killed him in his sleep.

But this is the sixth time everything's looped and he decides that he just doesn't care anymore. 

 

* * *

 

He spends the entire loop Bot-fighting and not caring when his brother gripes at him about it. Or the fact that Tadashi flips out when he finds that Hiro had disabled all of his trackers.

He gets arrested three times in the months leading up till May 1st.

He also gets the shit kicked out of him almost a dozen times, but he also makes some pretty interesting friends. All of them criminals: but it’s _new_ and _different,_ so Hiro loves it.

Especially when the loop ends and Tadashi and all of the Nerd Crew are still alive.

Callaghan ended up blowing up Krei Technologies again, but Hiro doesn't care.

A small part of him mourns Abigail. But he never checked if Callaghan destroyed the portal or not. 

  

* * *

 

"Good Morning baby bro! Time to rise and shine!" - Hiro lasted 4 months before someone stabs him in the kidneys in a back-alley for 'rigging' Bot-Battles. Apparently there's only so many times in a row you can bet on the winner of a battle before someone notices.

 

* * *

 

"Good Morning baby bro! Time to rise and shine!" - This time he sees if distance might help and spends a week making fake IDs, a Passport and credit cards. Then he buys a ticket to Japan, where no one looks at him twice, and spends most of it cooped up in an overpriced apartment eating junk food and watching anime.

(He sends Aunt Cass an email every week to make sure she doesn't worry. He knows she still does but it's the best he can do without going insane. Tadashi worries too; but Hiro never messages him. He's still not recovered from the fourth and fifth loop's betrayal yet.)

 

* * *

 

"Good Morning baby bro! Time to rise and shine!" - Getting away didn't stop the loop but it helped a lot so he does it again. This time he heads for Europe and ends up backpacking for a month before getting tired and instead he signs up for luxury cruise after luxury cruise.

(Though he ends up spending the last two weeks at Disney World and missing his brother. He loves and misses him: even though a part of him is angry.)

 

* * *

 

"Good Morning baby bro! Time to rise and shine!" - He tries to get things back on track again and goes straight for the portal. He doesn't wait long enough though, because Krei's security catches him snooping around and he ends up in jail for trespassing.

It wouldn't have been too bad if Callaghan hadn't decided that his court hearing was a good time to blow Krei up.

The bomb isn't what kills Hiro. He ends up bleeding out from shrapnel in his brother's arms. He's not sure if Tadashi dies after him or not. But he knows Aunt Cass died before he did.

(Hiro has a dark moment after he wakes up again of saving Abigail and then killing her in front of Callaghan because he's tired of this psycho getting his family killed.

He won't though.

Not for Callaghan.

But for Abigail. Abigail is the _goal_.

And he doesn't want everything resetting again if he kills her.

Plus, you know, murder.)

 

* * *

 

"Good Morning baby bro! Time to rise and shine!" - This time he submits his Microbots again and waits for Callaghan to set the Expo on fire and try to steal them.

He's waiting though. He uses his Microbots to hold the man down and watches his slowly suffocate before something explodes and he's waking up again. 

(Ok murder is bad. He's going to stop killing people now. And himself.

Maybe.)

  

* * *

 

"Good Morning baby bro! Time to rise and shine!" - This time he goes up to Fred's mansion and explains everything and the blond believes him. He's not sure why he never tried this before.

He ends up making the Fredzilla suit for Fred again, as well as a new suit for himself. When the two of them go up against Callaghan alone he ends up with a piece of metal cutting though his Achilles tendon.

It's a miracle he doesn't bleed out. He lives, but his left leg is fucked and Callaghan manages to destroy Krei Headquarters while he's sidelined.

(Next time - shin and ankle pads. What the hell was he thinking leaving his shins bare?)

 

* * *

 

"Good Morning baby bro! Time to rise and shine!" - He teams up with Fred again, but this time he uses Kevlar and Metal instead of Canvas and Carbon Fibers. It works out pretty well until Callaghan ruptures the flamethrower in Fred's suit during their first fight and Fred dies screaming.

(God. How many of his friends have to die for him to get this right?!)

Hiro survives, but before he could do anything some old guy dressed in spandex comes in and beats the shit out of Callaghan and they end up destroying the portal in the fight.

(So apparently Fred's dad was a superhero? Ex-superhero? All Hiro knows is that Mr. Marvel is _fucking terrifying._ The man had listen to his explanation but told him that he was retired and if he looped again that there was no way he would be able to convince him to help. And that his son was a _civilian_ and if Hiro found himself looping again he would like his son _safe_.

Hiro readily agrees. He spends the rest of that loop digging up everything he can on all past and present 'Heroes' and 'Villains'. Just in case.)

  

* * *

 

"Good Morning baby bro! Time to rise and shine!" - Hiro spent the entire loop monitoring the stock market, finding all the bookies in San Fransokyo that would take money from an underage kid and figuring out that most effective way to spend that money. 

(Callaghan still bombed Krei Headquarters: but Hiro hoped that it would be the last time)

 

* * *

 

"Good Morning baby bro! Time to rise and shine!" - It wasn't the last time. He gets arrested for hacking into 'sensitive' government documents and buying 'dangerous materials' for what they suspected was for making weapons.

(He ends up locked in some freaky underground bunker for some government alphabet-soup group he's never heard of before. It takes three days before someone slips up and he tries to breakout.

He barely gets down the hall before the alarms go off.

He ended up dying from what he was pretty sure feels like an _arrow_ going through his back.)

 

* * *

 

By the Sixteenth time he wakes up to his brother's "Good Morning baby bro! Time to rise and shine!" Hiro Hamada is tired. He wants everything to just be over.

So he has a plan as he _subtlety_ makes money and gets the materials for his new suit and tech. He ends up taking three months to finish everything but it's worth it. (Even if he ignores his brother: who's angry about him disabling his trackers and going out at night to 'Bot-fight'.)

He has six barrels of Microbots and a neural transmitter built into his helmet. His suit has nanofibers and Kevlar at its base: and with more armor than his original had. The armor is titanium alloy and is very heavy. His helmet has been modified slightly and he tinted the glass to protect his identity better. His shoes are steel toed, reinforced and made to be able to keep steady on low traction surfaces. 

His kneepads now cover down to his shins and tuck into his shoes and his pants have metal plating sewed into it. His belt is reinforced (similar to a rock climbers) and his chest plate covers his abs and sides now. His gloves are a lot smaller too. He needs a good grip rather than punching force.

Overall the colors are more muted then before with; mat-black and dark purple. All of this goes with the new wing pack he has set up (he might have stolen the schematics from the military in his last loop. His are better though.)

He's ready.

And he hopes this is the last time.

He waits until the tracker he placed on Callaghan shows him at the research lab to fly to the island. Callaghan isn't expecting anyone so Hiro manages to tranquilize the man before he even realizes Hiro is there.

Cuffing, duck taping and tying Callaghan up (it's not overkill. Really.) he sets his watch to tell him when the drug starts wearing off and goes to work directing the Microbots to fix the portal. Its takes six hours of building, two more doses as well as four hours of recoding before Hiro starts the reactivation sequence.

When the portal lights up with bright blue light he can't help but sigh in relief.

Sixteen tries and this is the first that he's got the portal open again. He also hopes that this is the last of everything.

Spreading his mechanical wings Hiro takes a second to center himself before dashing forward and disappearing through the portal. 

No one is around to see when a man in dented and scratched armor is suddenly standing on the platform, staring at the portal. Nor does anyone see the portal flash bright orange for a single second, before turning blue just in time for Hiro to burst through it with Abigail's pod.

The man is nowhere to be found.

 

* * *

  

Hiro calls for an ambulance from the island with the appropriate amount of panic in his voice and as soon as they promise to send a chopper to his location he hangs up.

He ignores Callaghan, knowing he's going to be asleep for at least another hour, and goes over to Abigail's pod, opens it up and carefully removes her helmet. He uses his scanner he made for this purpose to check her life signs (ok he might have stolen the coding from Baymax) and finds that she's stable but asleep.

Nodding Hiro jumps down from the pod and goes back to the control panel for the portal and puts in a USB with a virus that _eats_ the coding he used to fix the portal.

Once that's done he uses his Microbots to _obliterate_ the thing.

He gets so into it that he doesn't realize that the chopper arrived until his helmet alerts him to approaching life-signs.

He tracks them, where they follow the glow-in-the-dark spray-paint he used to highlight the right path, and decides it's time to go. He's about to use the hole in the roof to fly out when he looks over at Abigail and notices that she's awake and staring at him.

She smiles at him then. It’s a small smile, and tears are gathering in her eyes as she manages a quiet "Thank you Hiro."

He's frozen because he doesn't know what to say, but in the end he just nods and gathers up his Microbots and fly's upwards before the ERT's enter the room.

It's only later; when he's getting changed into his pajamas does it occur to him that he never met Abigail before, and that she shouldn't know his name.

 

* * *

  

The next two weeks are spent with Hiro constantly on the edge of a panic attack.

He's not sure if he fixed the looping problem yet (there's still three and a half months until May 1st) but there's not much he can do but _wait_. Tadashi is distracted by school work, so at least he's not making disappointed faces about Hiro's refusal to apply to SFIT.

It doesn't help that he's been disappearing into the bad part of town more blatantly either. Tadashi keeps trying to track him down and stop him from 'Bot-fighting' but Hiro has perfected the art of losing his brother.

(He might also have chipped Tadashi with a GPS tracker in his leg while he was sleeping. And his arm. So he's paranoid and a hypocrite. Sue him.) 

So Tadashi is kinda upset and annoyed with him and The Nerd Crew have never met him, and probably never will. At least Aunt Cass is happy with him. Aunt Cass never went to College or University, so she understands that Hiro can still succeed without more school. She wants the best for him but she wants him to be happy more (and she can tell that the idea of more school makes Hiro want to stab himself in the eyes.) so she leaves him be and he ends up spending most of his days alone.

(Some days he hugs Mochi to his chest and tells him _everything_. He knows that cat can't really understand him, but a part of him feels lighter after those talks. It's those days that he misses Baymax the most.)

So it's not a surprise when he almost jumps out of his skin when he steps outside of the Lucky Cat Café one morning and someone calls out "Good morning Hiro." in a chipper and overly familiar way.

Spinning around it takes a minute for him to figure out that the woman with loose brown hair and dressed in jeans and a sweater is Abigail Callaghan. The older woman smiles at him and hold out one of the coffee cups she's holding. "I thought we could talk." she explains and Hiro takes a moment to wrap his head around this turn of event (oh god, maybe someone else _remembers_ ) before he takes a leap of faith he takes the offered cup and follows the woman to the local park.

They end up sitting on one of the park benches underneath the cherry trees in silence. For a long time neither of them say anything; before Abigail finally starts talking.

"I could hear things sometimes." she starts softly, her voice barely above a whisper and just as fragile. "Everything is disjointed but I remember things." She reaches out and she grips Hiro's free hand in hers, staring into his eyes desperately. "I was asleep but I _saw_ you save me. With the balloon robot the first time: and then later with the wings."

Hiro can't help but swallow at the look on the woman's face. "You tried so hard and I remember it like I was awake and watching every moment you spent in the portal. Like I was right beside you. That part was clear."

Now a pain filled looks takes over her face. "Everything else was messy. Like channel surfing on a static TV while being drunk and having your neighbors radio playing full blast." Abigail grinned ruefully at the almost cross-eyed look Hiro got trying to work that metaphor out.

"I felt you die." she whispered, giving his hand another squeeze. "I could hear you screaming and begging and _fighting_ and I have to tell you Hiro Hamada." her face is scary now. "You're a hero. You saved my life and kept fighting and if there's _anything_ that I can do for you: money, tech, an alibi?" Hiro lets out a strained giggle at this, and Abigail cracks another smile.

"But most of all I want you to know that I want to be your friend." her smile is a little shy. "I can't replace the friends you lost but I hope we can be something." Her grin is a little wicked now. "Even if we only end up talking about Bot-fighting. Ok?"

And Hiro looks down at the pale hands holding his and he has to close his eyes a little at the sudden rush of relief that flows through him.

He's not crazy and he's not alone.

"Ok." 

 

* * *

 

Abigail shows up a lot after that. She makes sure to only come over when Tadashi is at school but Aunt Cass loves her. They giggle together sometimes (weirding him out) but Hiro is just happy to have someone he can be himself around, without trying to be normal.

(Tadashi is under the impression that Abigail is some Bot-fighter that Hiro brought home and is very unimpressed with his little brothers new friendship. Hiro has to hold back hysteric laughter when he realized that Tadashi didn't have any idea that the friend he was frowning about was the same Abigail that Tadashi is crushing on. Abigail had taken over most of her father's department at the University while he took a 'sabbatical', and Tadashi thought she was some type of Badass Science fuelled goddess. He couldn't wait for Tadashi to figure it out so he could laugh in his face.)

Time continued on: and when May 1st rolls around Hiro ended up spending the night at Abigail's, the two of them camp out on the couch watching anime and pretending that both of them aren't watching the clock count down.

 

When May 1st turned to May 2nd Hiro flings his arms into the air, laughing uncontrollably (and almost hitting Abigail in the face) before Abigail tackles the teen in a hug and declared that she’s having a drink in celebration.

 

(The afternoon of May 2nd has Hiro waking up face down on Abigail's carpet and feeling like something died in his mouth.

"Never again." Abigail promised as she kneels over the toilet and pukes her guts out.

Hiro only had a single drink ("Come on Abigail! I'm pretty sure with all the repeating I'm over 21." "Your body is only 14 Hiro!" " Ab-I-Gail!" "Ok you win! Just one!") So he's mostly ok and takes pity on her and helps to hold her hair back while she throws up.)

The loop was finally over.

Finally everything could go back to normal.

 

 

* * *

 

 [Two days later - **May 4th, 2012** ]

 

* * *

 

" _Hiro!_ " Abigail’s voice cried out from his cell phone speaker.

"Abigail? Are you ok? What's wrong!?" Hiro could feel panic gripping him as he wonders what's freaking his friend out a mere three days after they were so sure the loop had ended. What was happening? What was wrong?

" _Hiro turn on the TV right now!_ " Abigail demanded, and Hiro barely kept himself from slipping into a panic attack as he runs down the stairs, trips over Mochi, and almost faceplants into the living room table as he fumbles for the remote.

"The TV? Why? Never mind. What channel?" He asks when he finally grabs the offending piece of tech.

Abigail exhales shakily. " _Any of them._ "

Hiro frowns and clicks the TV on and only manages a confused "What..." before he registers what's he's seeing.

A portal.

A blue portal above New York City.

 _Aliens_.

"Oh my god." he manages to gasp out, the remote falling from his limp grip as he just stands there listening to Abigail's heavy breathing on the other end of the phone as Aliens invade New York. The TV shows a group of six superheroes fighting them; Iron Man, a guy dressed as Captain America, The Hulk, a redheaded ninja-woman, an archer and some flying lightening guy.

Blue Portal and a SIX man superhero team? Happening right now? This must have something to do with the loop.  

" _Hiro_?" Abigail's voice is calmer now, with a hard edged that says she's ready to start kicking ass.

"Ya?"

"I think you're going to need a better suit." she says; and Hiro watches the TV as everything he knows is flipped over on its head again and takes a deep breath.

"Probably a good idea."

  

* * *

 

Perched on the rooftop across from the Lucky Cat Café, a figure in battered purple armor watches Hiro Hamada make plans to stand alone against evil and wonders if he made the right choice.

Tadashi. Aunt Cass. Honey. Fred. Wasabi. They'd all live this way.

Shaking his head the figure stands up; the orange stone hanging around his neck flashing. He knows he needs to get back to his own time: Gogo and Baymax are waiting for him.

Twenty-six year old Hiro Hamada lightly touches the orange stone around his neck and disappears back to his own time.

He's done his part. He's made it so his friends and family will live.

He leaves; never noticing how for a split second, fourteen-year-old Hiro's eyes glow a shade of Orange that perfectly matches the Time Gem.

 

* * *

 

Time is _always_ flowing.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise! Marvel crossover! Technically this can be read as a standalone if you're only into BH6 but I am writing more in this universe that will heavily incorporate the Marvel Universe while staying mostly Hiro centered. Thank you Marvel Cinematic Universe Wikia for have EXACT dates for events so I could keep my timeline straight and my BF for editing!
> 
>  **Edit** : Some spelling and grammar changes. Plus **Captain Marvel** has been changed to **Mr. Marvel **.****


End file.
